Seven Niagara fruit growers are suing the provincial government for breach of contract after the province pulled the plug on the $20-million Niagara tender fruit lands plan last July.

The growers are suing for $4 million, the amount they were supposed to receive in the first year of the 10-year program. Provincial Agriculture Minister Noble Villeneuve, under pressure to cut provincial farm spending, killed the program on the same day cheques were due to be mailed out. The province has offered to pay five cents on the dollar to keep the case out of the courts, but that's not enough, said one source, who asked that his name be withheld. Negotiations have ceased, the source said.

The suit alleges that the government violated the agreement, which states that both parties - government and growers - could agree to terminate the program, but one party, independently, could not quash the deal.

"They offered us a contract, we signed, they broke it," the source said.

In their argument, the growers' lawyers will draw comparisons between the fruitlands contract and the deal signed by the federal government to privatize Toronto's Pearson Airport. Ottawa has been found legally liable for breaking a contract that would have allowed Pearson Development Corp., a private company, to operate two of the airport's terminals. Earlier this month, a civil trial got under way in the Ontario Court's General Division to determine what damages will be paid to Pearson Development. The company is seeking up to $662 million.

Villeneuve said he couldn't comment on the case, but told Farm & Country "it's in the hands of the Attorney General and the legal people that are involved there....We know there are some people who have the potential for litigating against the government."

The fruitlands program was designed by former NDP Agriculture Minister Elmer Buchanan and growers, who struck a deal to pay farmers to stick with the struggling tender fruit industry, keeping bulldozing developers at bay.

Last August, Villeneuve defended the move to kill the program. "Giving $20 million to very few tender fruit producers based on someone's judgment doesn't solve the industry's problem at all," he said. -BT

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Chicken exports take off

By ALEX BINKLEY
Special to Farm & Country

Poultry processors exported 31.1 million kilograms of chicken during 1995, a whopping 148-per-cent increase over 1994 levels and they're talking with the Canadian Chicken Marketing Agency about trying to further develop that business.

As impressive as the increase is, industry spokesmen are quick to point out that the figure is still half of the amount of chicken that Canada imported from the United States during 1995. Still, last year's exports, which were mainly to Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia, equalled all of the chicken shipped from Canada from 1981 to 1994 and amounted to 4.5 per cent of domestic production.

Quebec-based companies led the way in exports with 10.7 million kgs, just ahead of Ontario firms which shipped 10.6 million kgs, followed by British Columbia at 5.9 million kg, Alberta at 2.6 million kg, Atlantic provinces at 1 million kgs, Manitoba at 111,435 kgs and Saskatchewan at 59,387 kgs. About 80 per cent of the exports were chicken legs and leg quarters which were commanding strong prices on world markets last year.

The processors began searching out export markets because of the large inventories of chicken on hand last year, says Gib Shouldice of the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council. "It wasn't a national program where someone went out and developed a market. It was individual companies which wanted to keep their inventories under control.''

But encouraged by last year's success, the council and the chicken agency "have started to discuss a program that could build up chicken exports as the turkey agency has,'' Shouldice said.

The bulk of the exports are dark meat which is popular in many overseas countries but usually in surplus in Canada because North Americans prefer white meat. The United States has also been increasing its chicken exports, mostly chicken legs. One of the reasons for Canadian chicken export success is that production costs in Canada are starting to come in line with those in other countries ,which also helps Canadian processors develop markets.

"If we can find niche markets that we can be competitive in, then we could do well," Shouldice says.

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Sunshine State takes heat off hay

By ROBERT IRWIN
Special to Farm & Country

Ontario Hay Producers are no longer feeling heat from the sunshine state.

Earlier this month, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services abandoned its controversial US$70 charge on each truckload of Canadian hay, reports Lyle Vanclief, Parliamentary Secretary to the federal minister of agriculture.

Florida officials had been collecting the money since Jan. 22 under terms of their emergency "Plant Pest Control" rule. Florida bureaucrats claimed the measure was necessary as part of a program to protect Florida agriculture from a variety of pests, diseases and residues.

"They didn't even know what they were supposed to be inspecting for," says Ontario Hay Producers Association president Hans Brunner. He believes it was simply a non-tariff trade barrier aimed at Ontario hay. "We don't have any of the pests they say will affect their citrus industry," Brunner says. Canadian officials say they didn't have to lodge formal protest.

Florida race horse owners pay substantial premiums for Ontario hay. They believe the Ontario climate results in softer, less woody timothy and alfalfa with higher feed value. Brunner says this doesn't sit well with Florida growers.

Brunner, whose group lobbied Canadian politicians and bureaucrats to get the $70 fee thrown out, says Florida's about-face couldn't have come at a better time. "That's living proof that we can do something collectively for hay farmers." His membership could soon face a doubling of their current $20 membership fee to help deal with Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) cutbacks. OMAFRA staff help with secretarial and administrative tasks.

The association has boosted demand by stressing quality and teaching special production techniques for producers growing for Florida race horses. Brunner says Ontario ships 20,000 tons of hay annually to Florida. The $70 fee upped trucking costs by $10 per ton. Florida race horses eat an estimated 500,000 tons of hay each year.

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In U.S., agriculture still leads the PAC

The Washington adage about money following power is older than even South Carolina's very senior senator Strom Thurmond. At 93 years of age, Thurmond is going strong and intends a re-election bid in 1996.

Going strong, however, understates the flow of Political Action Committee money to the new Republican powers in Washington.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan Washington, D.C. group which tracks money in politics, Republicans received two-thirds of the record US$35.2 million in PAC money given to Congress between January and June, 1995.

Ag PACs have been particularly generous to Congress. According to the Center, agriculture PAC contributions during the first half of 1995 totalled US$3,796,088 - sixth largest among the top 100 'industries/interest groups' monitored by the Center. Republicans claimed US$2.7 million of it, or 73 per cent. Nearly 38 per cent of the US$3.8 million donated by ag PACs - US$1,435,450 - came directly from farm groups and agri-businesses and flowed directly to members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees.

The biggest ag sugar daddies to the Agriculture Committees during the first half of 1995 - when, coincidentally, the groundwork was laid for the 1995 Farm Bill - were sugar, with US$220,673 in PAC donations; tobacco, with US$161,850; and dairy, with US$130,250.

Does PAC money buy influence? Perhaps, but its impact is difficult to assess when you examine the Big Three's final disposition in the current Farm Bill proposal: sugar remained protected; tobacco and dairy were left out of the bill completely. Dairy may make it in yet, however, as the budget fit continues.

Since the House Agriculture Committee has more members (46) who accept PAC money than the Senate Committee (15), the House harvested US$991,537 of farm PAC money, while senators had to make do with US$443,913.

And the champion PAC attractors? In the House, it was Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, who collected US$112,163 from farm and agri-business PACs from January through June. A bit more than US$45,000 came from producer groups and food processors.

The number two man in House Agriculture PAC pickings is Thomas Ewing, chairman of the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Risk Management and Specialty Crops. He's the man to see when it comes to legislation on crop insurance, futures markets and crops like peanuts, vegetables, grapes and potatoes.

That new role helped bring Ewing US$58,650 in farm PAC money 18 months before he seeks re-election in one of the safest Congressional seats in agriculture - Ed Madigan's old black dirt, corn-soybean district of central Illinois.

Over 40 per cent of Ewing's PAC contributions came from two agricultural interests as foreign to Illinois as palm trees:

US$16,000 from peanut growers and US$8,500 from sugar groups. Nancy Watzman at the Center for Responsive Politics, says Ewing could be the poster boy for campaign finance reform. Until the Republican revolution in November, 1994, brought sunshine - and a subcommittee chairmanship - his way, Ewing was just another obscure, three-term member of the Agriculture Committee.

"In the last election cycle [1993-94]," notes Watzman, "Ewing received zero money from peanut groups. Now he's an ag subcommittee chairman and he becomes the top recipient of peanut PAC money in Congress.

"He's the perfect example of how PAC money follows power." Lovely. Leave it to agriculture to once again be seen as the leader of the PAC.

Alan Guebert is a farm writer from the Corn Belt.